Fast Food

March 15, 2016

Last week I ordered Chinese food from an online delivery site I often use- Grubhub. When the meal ended up taking a little longer than expected, I decided to look through my emails and check for any alerts or updates.

Instead of a notification that my food “was taking longer than expected,” I was surprised to open an email alerting me to Grubhub’s new “Terms of Use.” Usually I would skim right over this type of email, but the message promised new “features” that I would “love,” so I decided to check it out right then.

So as of April 6, if Grubhub allows your personal data to be stolen, releases damaging computer viruses through its software, misidentifies ingredients causing you harm, repeatedly overcharges, or is responsible for any other kind of harm, you won’t be able to take them to court. Instead, you will be forced to resolve your dispute in a private, secretive, rigged arbitration system controlled by Grubhub, with no right to appeal. What’s more, even if thousands of customers suffer the same kind of injury as you, you’ll have to bring and pay for your case all alone. You’ll be prohibited from joining with others in a class action.

If you have a legal dispute with online food delivery portal GrubHub (or its Seamless subsidiary), you will soon lose the ability to resolve that matter in a court of law. And if there are others out there with the same problem as you, you’ll each have to fight GrubHub on your own because the company has decided to view all of its customers as potential litigants.

What’s not to love?

Yet Grubhub isn’t the only corporation forcing people to give up their legal rights like this. It’s happening all over the place. Buried in the fine print of many contracts are, what consumer advocated have dubbed, “rip-off clauses” that strip individuals (and often times small businesses) of their right to go to court if they are harmed by a company.

These forced arbitration clauses and class action bans are so harmful to consumers, that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working on drafting a rule to address these clauses in consumer financial products, like bank accounts and credit cards. And last Friday, the Department of Education issued a proposal that “would protect from the use of mandatory arbitration provisions in [college and university] enrollment agreements.”

But while these new rules will be a step toward creating a fairer system for students and financial product consumers, there are still many areas – like food delivery- where companies continue taking away the right to jury trial, which the framers of the U.S. Constitution thought they were preserving with the 7th Amendment.

And you may ask yourself, “What can be done other than not using these goods and services completely?”

May 15, 2014

Who knew the New York Times had a sexist underbelly? Like the rest of the world we’re just speculating here, but yesterday’s abrupt firing of New York Times top editor Jill Abramson over possible complaints about pay disparity has made us realize something: the struggles shared by many Americans to be paid fairly for their work is also shared by the Executive Editor of the New York Times! (And if that’s true, what hope is there for the rest of us?) The New Yorker's Ken Aulettawrites:

As with any such upheaval, there’s a history behind it. Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.

Of course, she's not the only one. Coincidently, today, hundreds of fast food workers decided to strike in “dozens of U.S. cities” trying to get a barely decent wage - $15 an hour – and the right to form a union.

Restaurants such as McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC are being targeted. The strike, targeting the $200 billion fast-food industry at a time of intense competition, is aimed at directing consumer attention to the low wages of most fast-food workers. The one-day campaign continues protests launched 18 months ago.

As the workday was getting underway in New York, employees at a McDonald's near Penn Station chanted "unfair wages" as others beat drums and blew trumpets.

In fact, these fast food strikes are happening all over the world today. Meanwhile, check out some of the other companies that have been caught cheating their U.S. workers this week:

“A Walmart contractor that operates many of the retailer's distribution centers has agreed to pay $21 million in backpay to warehouse workers in California who claim they were systematically shorted on pay for years.”

“Two New Jersey ship repair companies — Bayonne Dry Dock and Repair Corp. and Coastwide Material Supply Corp. — paid $277,565 in unpaid wages and liquidated damages for distribution to 224 workers who worked for the firms at the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, N.J., the Department of Labor reported."

"The United States Department of Labor released a report on Thursday that found Black Bear Burritos, LLC to be in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the Department of Labor, $232,295 in back wages is owed to 105 employees from two different restaurants in Morgantown [West Virginia]."

You know that Karl Marx saying, “workers of the world unite? Maybe he was onto something.

February 13, 2014

Food addiction is no joke. In fact, “Experiments in animals and humans show that, for some people, the same reward and pleasure centers of the brain that are triggered by addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin are also activated by food, especially highly palatable foods” like sugar, fat and salt. (See, e.g., “Hello, My Name is Jocelyn and I'm a Beignet-addict.” Sorry, didn’t mean to joke. But really, who’s been to NOLA lately and hasn’t become a beignet addict?

Actually, as we also know, food addiction caused by sugar, fat and salt also plays an “important role in obesity.” I’m sure you’ve already read, seen or at least head about all the books and movies coverning this problem.

So I, for one, am pleased that, “Lawyers are pitching state attorneys general in 16 states with a radical idea: make the food industry pay for soaring obesity-related health care costs.” WritePolitico:

It’s a move straight from the playbook of the Big Tobacco takedown of the 1990s, which ended in a $246 billion settlement with 46 states, a ban on cigarette marketing to young people and the Food and Drug Administration stepping in to regulate.

There are plenty of naysayers, just as there were in 1994 when Mike Moore, Mississippi’s attorney general, famously suggested suing the tobacco industry. But a number of nutrition and legal experts think a similar strategy could be applied on the food front — especially as obesity-related diseases have surpassed smoking as a major driver of health care costs.…

[Some predicte that] “lawyers will eventually home in on “food addiction,” a theory pioneered by former FDA Commissioner David Kessler.

Sometimes, litigation is on the only way to reign in this industry - including retailers - which often operate without much legal accountability. Today, Reuters in the New York Timesreports that,

Kroger, the biggest supermarket operator in the United States, faces a lawsuit claiming it deceived consumers by marketing a store brand as products from humanely raised chickens when the animals were raised under standard commercial farming.

The complaint, filed late Tuesday in Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County, is seeking class-action status against Kroger, accusing it of misleading California consumers with claims about the grocer’s “Simple Truth” premium-priced store brand of chicken. The products are packaged with labeling that states the animals were raised “in a humane environment,” but the lawsuit says they are produced by Perdue Farms, which has followed industry practices like electric stunning of birds before slaughter.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating the illnesses of children in three states in recent months that have been linked to Uncle Ben's infused rice served in schools.

The cluster of illnesses have affected children in Texas, Illinois and North Dakota. At three schools in Katy, Texas, 34 students and four teachers experienced skin reactions, burning, headaches and nausea last week after eating Uncle Ben's "Mexican flavor" infused rice. … Mars Foodservices, which produces the product, has recalled 5- and 25-pound bags of various rice products primarily sold to schools, restaurants, hospitals and other commercial establishments. The products, however, can also be found at warehouse retail outlets, the FDA said.

They include the company's roasted chicken, garlic and butter, cheese and Spanish flavors. A full list of the recalled rice items can be found here. The company is recalling all bags and all lot numbers of the products produced in 2013.

January 23, 2012

We’ve blogged here many times about the HBO documentary film, Hot Coffee, which, among other things, contains shocking footage of third-degree burns and skin grafts suffered by the late Stella Liebeck after scalding McDonald’s coffee spilled in her lap, and shows that McDonald’s knew their coffee was as hot as a car radiator and had already scalded at least 700 people, and that the verdict was slashed by the judge and then she settled for even less.

We’ve never properly honored McDonald’s for the way it handled this case, so today, we’d like to invite all PopTort fans to show McDonald’s exactly what you think of them by tweeting using their brilliant hastag #McDStories. As the Huffington Post reports today, the company started this hashtag as a company promotion, but from there, hilarity has ensued!

If you agree with us that seriously injuring their customers and then viciously fighting them in court is at least worthy of a tweet, then please add your thoughts. #McDStories! And the go get yourself a Hot Coffee DVD.

September 19, 2008

Believe it or not, the latest trend to be sweeping the nation amongst restaurant owners and managers appears to be dipping into the tip jars of frontline workers, and transferring the proceeds into their own piggy banks. The latest offender in this unappetizing practice was celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten who recently agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by his waiters for $1.75 million in pilfered tips.

Not to be outdone, two former waiters who claimed more than 100 workers were forced to share their tips with restaurant management recently sued Nobu restaurants, which are partially owned by actor Robert DeNiro. Hip-hop mogul Jay Z has also been rapped with a lawsuit for allegedly keeping a cut of workers’ tips at his Chelsea hot spot, the 40/40 Club.

Even coffee baristas have been forced to seek relief from the civil justice system to reclaim misappropriated gratuities. In March, a Superior Court judge ordered Starbucks to pay its California workers more than $100 million in back tips that the chain had unfairly given away to shift supervisors.

“Why does a successful establishment need to pay employees out of waiters’ tips?” asked attorney D. Maimon Kirschenbaum, who represented the plaintiffs in the Nobu case. “It is almost impossible to understand. If you need more money to pay your managers, charge more for your food. I feel they’re just doing it because they can.”

Thankfully, workers’ access to civil remedies when their tips are stolen means greedy food industry bosses may be less apt to go for seconds.

July 30, 2008

Following up on an earlier post regarding the FDA not doing such a great job regulating our food supply, this editorial ran in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer,

The FDA: Food Fright

A red-faced Food and Drug Administration now admits that tomatoes were not the cause of a nationwide salmonella outbreak.

The
culprit, apparently, is Mexican-grown jalapeño peppers. But the agency
responsible for ensuring the safety of 80 percent of the nation's food
supply still isn't sure of the source of the food poisoning, months
after it began.

The earliest-known victim got sick on April 10. In May, four cases
of salmonella poisoning showed up in Pennsylvania, including people in
Bucks and Lancaster Counties. On June 7, the FDA issued its warning
about tomatoes, and many local groceries pulled them from produce
aisles. Fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's and Taco Bell stopped
serving tomatoes.

By this month, more than 1,200 people in 43 states had been
sickened, the worst such outbreak in a decade. And now the FDA says,
essentially, "Oops."

This episode is only the latest in a string
of examples of the FDA's falling down in its mission to protect U.S.
consumers. It's all the more reason for Congress to proceed with
beefing up the agency's food-inspection capabilities.

If the FDA were doing its detective work effectively, it would
benefit business owners, too. Just ask people in the agriculture
industry who got blamed erroneously for the salmonella outbreak. (read on)

July 17, 2008

Okay,
so we pick on the FDA quite a bit – but usually it is for drugs and
medical devices. But, as the name implies the Food and Drug
Administration is also supposed to regulate our food supply.

Since April we have been hearing about the salmonella outbreak that
has sickened at least 1,000 people across the country. Although
tomatoes are allegedly to blame, the FDA has yet to prove the
connection (but none-the-less doing untold amount of damage to the
tomato industry).

In Michael Pollan's (I became a big big fan of his after reading Omnivore's Dilemma) In Defense of Food – An Eater's Manifesto, among other points he rallies against processed food. In the section
I was reading last night, he talked about FDA approved food labels (p. 156):

It would appear that "qualified" is
an official FDA euphemism for "all but meaningless." Though someone
might have let the consumer in on the game: The FDA's own research
indicates that consumers have no idea what to make of qualified heath
claims (how would they?), and its rules allow companies to promote the
claims pretty much any way they want – they can use really big type for
the claim, for example, and then print the disclaimers in teeny-tiny
type.

UPDATE: Just after I posted this, I noticed that the FDA gave the go-ahead on eating tomatoes again. Thanks, but I think I'll stick to eating local produce...

April 24, 2008

I can't wait for Wednesdays when the New York Times publishes its food section. But much to my surprise yesterday's paper had a great article about our civil justice system tucked in between a recipe for minimalist tacos and the discussion of dry Rieslings.

Thanks to a recent class-action lawsuit, we now know the popular frozen
yogurt company Pinkberry hasn't always been accurate about their advertised
"all natural" ingredients. Not that the company was putting anything
necessarily dangerous in their "swirly goodness" but it wasn't quite as
"healthy, nonfat and all-natural" as they said it was.

Sure, we wish that companies would simply do the right thing (like list out their ingredients) but when they don't, I sure am
glad we have our courts to make it right. In this case, to make things right Pinkberry
agreed to pay $750,000 to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

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